“If you liked the last six years of Barack Obama, you’d love the next four years of Charlie Crist.”

FLA GOP HITS CRIST EMBRACE OF OBAMA
The Florida GOP puts President Obama’s statement that his “policies are on the ballot” front and center in a new ad that highlights Democratic challenger Charlie Crist’s embrace of the president. “Charlie Crist backed Obama from the start,” the ad says. “If you liked the last six years of Barack Obama, you’d love the next four years of Charlie Crist.”

Putin has been taking a series of calculated measures to expose weak spots in our economy and national security that pre-date his Crimean invasion...

 Russia Has Begun Dumping U.S. Dollars

Putin just made his move... Russia has begun dumping U.S. dollars Dear Concerned American, This is a quickly developing story that you need to see. It's being reported that under the direct order of President Vladimir Putin, Russia has begun dumping U.S. dollars. Over the last few days the amount has added up to an estimated $2 billion. However, new details are emerging that suggest this direct attack on our currency may quickly escalate. Putin has been taking a series of calculated measures to expose weak spots in our economy and national security that pre-date his Crimean invasion. But according to this must-read story, what he's now setting in motion could bankrupt millions of Americans virtually overnight. Click here to continue... Stay Safe, Mike Ward Publisher, Money Morning

A DEFICIT IS THE AMOUNT SPENT BY THE GOVERNMENT ANNUALLY THAT IS IN EXCESS OF THE TAXES COLLECTED. THE DEBT IS THE ACCUMUILATED TOTAL OF ALL DEFICITS IN THE HISTORY OF THE COUNTRY.

What most Americans don't understand and the politicians want to keep it that way.

We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we don't tax enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because government spends too much.

RONALD REAGAN

5/20/1982

A DEFICIT IS THE AMOUNT SPENT BY THE GOVERNMENT ANNUALLY THAT IS IN EXCESS OF THE TAXES COLLECTED.

THE DEBT IS THE ACCUMUILATED TOTAL OF ALL DEFICITS IN THE HISTORY OF THE COUNTRY.

With that in mind, read and think about the above quote from Reagan in 1982 6 years after the US bi-centennial.

True 32 years ago and true today... but 32 years ago the country was 206 years old and it took that long for the accumulated deficits (annual spending minus annual tax collections) to equal 1 TRILLION DOLLARS. Today the country is 238 years old and the national debt is 18 TRILLION DOLLARS think about that 17 trillion has been added to the national debt in 32 years (doesn't include unfunded liabilities of 115 TRILLION) we're heading for a disaster unless these politicians are contained; who am I kidding it's already too late. The government collects more taxes than it ever has and they want more; oddly enough that would only make the problem worse. Click the link below.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

Who are the Normalistas? Radicals? Revolutionaries? Communists? ...

Borderland Beat

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• Who are the Normalistas? Radicals? Revolutionaries? Communists? 
• Mexican Teachers set up tent city in support of missing normalistas
• FBI Informant Met Drug Lord El Chapo Guzmán In Mexican Mountains

Who are the Normalistas? Radicals? Revolutionaries? Communists?  Posted: 18 Oct 2014 11:23 PM PDT A Normalista Protester The Government has tried to spin a perception that  the students from the Escuela Normal of Ayotzinapa fall into one of the categories above;  “Radical, Revolutionaries, or Communist”. A "normal" school is a college, usually a 2 year college, to train high school graduates to become teachers.  The use of the term to describe teachers colleges goes back to the 16th century. In the US, the term has mostly been dropped from the name of the school and they are typically called Teachers Colleges.  In Mexico the term is still used and they are mostly located in poor areas and the students are mostly from the indigenous communities. Students at those schools are typically called "Normalistas". What seems to be missing from all the confusing and sometimes conflicting stories on the massacre in Iguala and the aftermath is any mention of who these students are, and what their disappearance (I have no doubt they’ve been murdered) means.   These kids were the best and the brightest of very poor families, most of them from indigenous communities.  It was a sacrifice on the parts of their families to even send their sons (and most were young men, though a few are women) to lose their labor while the students themselves lived in appalling conditions BY CHOICE.  There were not pampered college kids… these were young men and women on a mission. We are told by the government and the media (following the government spin) that these students were “radicals”,  But if you look at the big picture, they are radical only in the sense that educating the poor is a radical idea, and educating minorities is “radical”.  If the rural normal schools have a reputation for being on the political left, whose fault is that?  Who else have supported the schools, and who else is providing the material support (like books for their libraries, let alone food for their cafeteria)?  And, given the “support” given to rural people and the indigenous in this country by the government and a large part of society as a whole, what would one expect?   When “education” is being re-defined as job training and not as a way of means of liberating one’s self, students feel they have a right to rebel.  And… in this political and social climate… to liberate one’s self, and to see one’s role in life as assisting others in their own liberation is a “radical” act, a defiance of the State and of the prevailing economic assumptions. "Radical" Normalista Protesters That these students are actually very conservative (simple “peasants” seeking to preserve their culture, but within the modern world) is lost when we see on the walls of the school those posters and murals of Che or Lenin or Emiliano Zapata.. but what other models are presented to them?  What neo-liberal — or social democratic — model would make room for their survival, or accept their way of life?  What has representative “democracy” given them?  As journalist and author of several books on Mexico, Richard Grabman stated; “I’d be tempted to torch a statehouse myself if my representatives were not just doing nothing (I’m used to the U.S. Congress), but actively working against my survival, and appeared to actively participate in the destruction of my family, my culture and the future”. Keep in mind the immediate cause of the massacre in Iguala was the students going there to raise money for a trip to Mexico City to join the national protests scheduled for  Oct 2 to commemorate the Tlatelolco Massacre.  There is a war in this country against the indigenous, and the campesinos.  Whether the fight is over water, or electrical power, or minerals, or narcotics, it has less to do with access to the product than with who stands in the way of “progress”, and what they are able to say or think about those who have access.  Those that teach, those that speak up, those that refuse to acquiese in their own destruction, are the ones being “disappeared” or murdered.    Disappeared in Iguala  Everyone knows that Iguala was not the first student massacre by the government.  The  roots of the student  movement in Mexico do not go back to the world-wide movements of the late 60s, but to a seemingly unimportant …. and little noted… incident a decade earlier, when students took to the streets to demand the government lift a ban on showing “Jailhouse Rock” in movie theaters.   In 1958, nothing happened (other than the Federal District arranged for more matinee showing of Elvis, with half-price tickets for those with a student ID card) until in 1968. Much has changed since the "Elvis" protests in 1958.  What made the Elvis protests seemingly unimportant in 1958 was that the number of students at the time was relatively small, and students were still overwhelmingly from priviliged backgrounds, not particularly representative of the people as a whole.  By 1968, with economic growth leading to a larger pool of families that could afford to allow their children to engage in economically unproductive work like seeking a higher education, and with even rural campesinos having benefited from rural electrification (and television), there were not only more students in 1968, but more and more   campesinos and workers included in their family circle an educated “person of respect”.   WHAT HAPPENED IN 1968;  THE GOOD AND THE BAD THE BAD THE GOOD Though the shameful actions of the government (which they tried to cover up) are what most people remember about Oct. 2, 1968,  some good came from the events of that day.  Legs were put under the "student movement".  Some of their demands were met. Universities and Normal Schools were given more autonomy; meaning that students, teachers and administrators were given the power to run the schools without direct state interference.  This meant that the students and faculty were given greater voice in what they studied and more control over their future.  The military and police were removed from the campuses and there was greater freedom of speech and assembly.   Fast forward to 2014.   Over the next 40 years many of those rights gained at such a high price in 1968 were eroded.  The education reforms of 2013 and 2014 in which teachers, administrators, students, much less the indigenous population had no voice in formulating.  While the schools are in desperate need of better funding, and the teachers in need of better training and resources,  the government has shown a  tolerance for mismanagement and outright theft by the union bosses imposed on the teachers by themselves.   Coupled with that is the imposition of curriculum changes meant not to create educated people, but workers.   Removing humanities from the curriculum in favor of shortened classes meant to impart just the technical training needed for careers is one of the students’ largest complaints.   That, and as the nation’s main source for teacher training and school administration, a recognition that merely training a student to present facts in a classroom (and to adequately pass standarized tests) is not education, and is meant to thwart the expectations of a better life for the next generation. In Guerrero, at what even by long-time Mexico hands like the Guardian’s Jo Tuckman as “a famously radical teacher training college”, it isn’t so much the “radicalism” that has sent the students off campus and into the streets, as another of the 1968 factors.  The Guerrero students are nearly all indigenous… from families in which a village maestro is as close to “person of respect” that the forgotten campesinos of this country can strive to become.  If they are “radical” it is in the sense that indigenous people are always “radical” in fighting to preserve their traditions.  These students reject a requirement to teach English, for example, less because of any (quite legitimate) sense that the requirement is for the benefit of foreign employers and foreign control of future workers, but because they recognize that their students are already at a disadvantge, often not speaking Spanish.  And that they can’t get texts in their own languages.  And, as the future “men and women of respect” in their traditional cultures, they are expected to lead the struggle for their various people’s autonomy In October 1968, the state's presumed intention in using massive force against the students  was to end  the student movement.   It didn't work.   The movement may have slept for a while licking it's wounds, but the "YoSoy132" movement showed it was still alive.   The governments actions (and inaction) in Iguala may have ignited a fuse that set off a salvo that was heard around the world.  Lets hope it is not forgotten and it forces some "radical" change.

Mexican Teachers set up tent city in support of missing normalistas Posted: 18 Oct 2014 05:10 PM PDT Borderland Beat republished from Fusion by Manuel Rueda-heads up from "Jeff" Big Thanks! "43 Normalistas are dead,  many  were burned alive"..... said Father Alejandro Solalinde Guerra, the internationally known human rights champion.  He himself has been threaten, kidnapped and beaten  because of his refusal to stay away from the business of organized crime. He was in exile due to death threats. In an interview this week he said; "From Sunday to today,  I have had several meetings with witnesses, eyewitnesses, who suffered in the first and second attack, students, but there are other sources, who are not students that speak of a time before. They talk about that some were wounded, and they burned alive, ignited after pouring diesel on them. Others they were incinerated in a wood fire, some alive, some dead." "The first meeting I was given information directly, that was on Sunday.   The second one I had yesterday in Mexico City. The first thing I learned is that there are witnesses, but are afraid to speak,  if they talk, they fear they will be killed. "said the priest. Solalinde clarified that it is unknown whether young people could be in one of the pits that the Attorney General's Office (PGR) and the Union of Organized State of Guerrero (UPOEG) Towns found in Iguala. "We do not know. If  they are in the  pits, the Argentine forensic anthropology team has the  technology,"but insisted:" But there is no hope that they are alive. "  However, as of Wednesday the state and federal governments were not allowing the Argentine to assist in the identifications.  The photo above, and below are  from a protest march in Acapulco this week.   The following is the Fusion article Hundreds of teachers have set up a tent city in the main square of this state capital in southern Mexico, and say they will not leave until the government finds 43 college students who disappeared three weeks ago, after they were reportedly abducted by local police linked to a drug gang. The protest, which began on Monday, reflects the outrage many Mexicans feel toward  politicians and law enforcement officials, whom they hold responsible for one the darkest crimes in Mexico’s recent history. The crowd shows few signs of dissipating. “I don’t  just think I will stay here, I am driven to stay here, as are all of my colleagues,” said Pastor Mojico, one of the teachers. “We all feel the necessity to stay here because of the outrage we feel. So it’s not something to think about it, it’s something that you feel and are compelled to do.” The students, from the Ayotzinapa rural teacher’s college in the state of Guerrero, haven’t been seen since Sept. 26, when they were attacked by police in the city of Iguala after they hijacked three buses during a protest. Three students were killed in the attack, and investigators suspect that the missing students were rounded up by police and handed over to a local drug cartel, who then executed them and buried them in clandestine graves. While  several possible grave sites have been identified, DNA tests showed that one site didn’t contain the students’ bodies, and authorities have to announce the  DNA results for the bodies found at two other grave sites nearby. At the Zócalo, a historical square in the heart of Chilpancigo, teachers sleep under nylon tents and cook whatever food is available to them in portable gas stoves. Showers are hard to come by, but they have occupied the city hall, have been using bathrooms there.  “These crimes don’t just affect the cities,” said an elementary school teacher from Santa Cruz Copanatoyac, a municipality deep in Guerrero’s eastern mountains. “Sometimes people disappear in our area or die because they are involved in organized crime, but [the missing students] were just kids who wanted to better themselves,” said the teacher, who asked that his name not be published for fear of reprisals. Most of the maestros sleeping in the square are affiliated with  teachers unions that have promised to occupy all 41 city hall buildings in the state until the students are found.  They are known for leading militant protests against Mexico’s education reforms, and economic policies like the privatization of the country’s oil sector.Many hail from rural areas that are mostly inhabited by indigenous people. For the full Fusion article follow the link above....

FBI Informant Met Drug Lord El Chapo Guzmán In Mexican Mountains Posted: 18 Oct 2014 04:18 PM PDT Borderland Beat republished from Forbes Mexican drug lord Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán Loera, imprisoned  leader of one of the most powerful criminal empires, met with a confidential FBI informant in 2010, according to a federal prosecutor at the drug trial of a member of Mexico’s ruling PRI party in U.S. District Court in New Hampshire. According to trial documents, Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald Feith said on October 6 that during the meeting, “which took place in the mountains of Mexico, the CHS (confidential human source) was introduced to Guzmán Loera” by defendant Jesús Manuel Gutiérrez Guzmán, El Chapo’s business representative for the U.S.  Feith added that the meeting, which took place in April 2010, was not recorded and only involved the informant. In 2011, El Chapo Guzmán, Gutiérrez Guzmán (El Chapo’s cousin), Samuel Zazueta Valenzuela, Jesús Gonzalo Palazuela Soto and Rafael Celaya Valenzuela, were indicted on one count of conspiracy to distribute drugs in New Hampshire. All but El Chapo were arrested in Spain in August 2012 after FBI agents intercepted a shipment of 346 kilograms of cocaine from Brazil. Gutiérrez, Zazueta and Palazuela pleaded guilty, but Celaya, who identified himself as the cartel’s “attorney and financial planner,” decided to stand trial. Celaya stands out from the group for his ties to the PRI, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s party. According to Mexican media, at the time of his arrest, Celaya was an active member of the PRI in the northern border state of Sonora. He tried to run for federal congressman but failed.  During Peña Nieto’s 2012 presidential campaign, Celaya posted on Facebook pictures of himself with Peña Nieto and two now prominent PRI senators which were published in the Mexican media. While not denying ties to Celaya, the PRI said that during the presidential campaign Peña Nieto posed for thousands of photos with PRI members, but clarified that it “doesn’t imply closeness or commitment.” On Wednesday, Celaya was convicted of conspiracy to distribute more than 2,200 pounds of cocaine, plus heroin and methamphetamines by a federal jury in New Hampshire. While ties between organized crime and political parties, not only the PRI, are a known fact in Mexican politics, Celaya is the first PRI member to be convicted on drug charges in the U.S. in many years. Secret video and audio recordings used during the trial showed Celaya , fellow cartel members and undercover FBI agents, who passed themselves off as members of an Italian organized crime syndicate, conspiring to expand the gang’s cocaine empire in the U.S. and into Europe. U.S. Assistant Attorney Feith said Celaya and other members of the cartel met over the course of three years in the New Hampshire city of New Castle, as well as in Madrid, the Virgin Islands, Miami and Mexico. The conspirators and undercover agents at first discussed shipments of 1,000 kilos of cocaine with one of the cartel members promising they could deliver 20 tons. According to court documents, Celaya’s lawyers argued that he should be acquitted because he never reached an agreement with the Sinaloa cartel to move drugs, meaning there was no conspiracy. They also argued that New Hampshire was the wrong venue for the trial. Contrary to his co-defendants, Celaya turned down a plea deal that would have given him 10 to 20 years in prison, instead of the 10 years to life he faces after conviction. He is set to be sentenced in January.

WINTER IS COMING SOON, AND THESE PHOTOS DO NOT OFFER MUCH COMFORT... There's always Florida!

WINTER IS COMING SOON, AND THESE PHOTOS DO NOT OFFER MUCH COMFORT.

 

A somewhat large .pdf file and takes a minute or 2 to load.....!

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/box/papers/Bliz78NWS.pdf

Premier Leader of Guerreros Unidos Captured Iguala: Banner Message to President Peña, signed by "El Choky" Dozens of Bodies Found in Sewage Canal Outside Mexico City - More Femicide in Mexico State?

Borderland Beat

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• Premier Leader of Guerreros Unidos Captured
• Iguala: Banner Message to President Peña, signed by "El Choky"
• Dozens of Bodies Found in Sewage Canal Outside Mexico City - More Femicide in Mexico State?

Premier Leader of Guerreros Unidos Captured Posted: 17 Oct 2014 09:10 PM PDT The Attorney General's Office announced the capture yesterday on the Mexico-Toluca highway,  of Sidronio Casarrubias Salgado, identified by federal authorities as Premier  leader of the criminal organization Guerrero Unidos During a press conference, , Jesús Murillo Karam the attorney general;  Tomas  Zeron de Lucio the head of the Criminal Investigation Agency, Alejandro Monte the National Security chief, together made the announcement of the arrest. Casarrubias was captured at a checkpoint on the Mexico-Toluca Highway, heading towards Mexico State capital,  he was accompanied by at least one person. Murillo Karam said in his first statement, the criminal leader denied having ordered the murder of 6 people and the disappearance of 43 normalistas in Iguala, while accepting that he was informed of the facts. De Lucio said that Casarrubias, who was carrying a fake badge at the time of his capture, has an arrest history in the US, history of having been detained in the United States.  The detainee is the brother of Mario Casarrubias Salgado "El Sapo Guapo", (above left) who on 1 May was captured in Toluca, State of Mexico, by members of the Federal Police. After his capture, he was succeeded by  Sidronio for command of  Guerreros Unidos.  Written with information from Reforma and PGR

Iguala: Banner Message to President Peña, signed by "El Choky" Posted: 17 Oct 2014 01:10 PM PDT Chivis Martinez for Borderland Beat A manta was found hanging on display in the city of San Jose, a city in close proximity to Iguala.  The manta was addressed to President Enrique Peña Nieto, in which Mario Casarrubias Salgado (founder of Guerrero Unidos) and brothers along with a gang in Peques as responsible for the normalistas disappearance and killings.  The message is signed by “El Choky”, who authorities identify as the chief of sicarios of the cartel.  “We know who is responsible,  it is the  Casarrubias Salgado bothers,  Adán (El Jitomate), Ángel (El Mochomo), Sidronio (El Chino), together with the  Benítez Palacios brothers, Oziel (El Oso), Víctor Hugo (El Tilo), Mateo (El Gordo), Salvador (Chava) Reynaldo (Rey), El Cholo Palacios, also  Gil, May, Chente, Popoca  and la Veva”,  Mr. President, you want names, here are names;   Taxco:Salomón Majul González and Eruviel Salado Sánchez; Ixtapan de la sal: Ignacio Ávila Navarrete and  Efraín Pedroza Flores; Iguala: José Luis Abarca Velazquez and Francisco Valladares; Huitzuco: Héctor Vicario Castrejón, Norberto Figueroa Almozo, Javier Duarte Núñez and  Marcelo Villalba Adame; Tepecoacuilco: Antonio Galarza Zavaleta; Cocula: César Miguel Peñaloza; Teloloapan: Ignacio Valladares; Apaxtla: Efraín Peña Damasio.  These are those who form the group Guerrero Unidos.” The manta also charges  Hector Castrejon, Sedatu chief (Urban Development) with ties to the  Guerreros Unidos cartel and eight mayors. On October 5th, the atty general for the state of Guerrero,  identified "el Choky" as the leader of Guerreros Unidos, and is responsible for ordering the normalista  killings. The name of the person behind the moniker is unknown, however people on mainboard have thought it to be Jorge Luis Valencia Arzate, previously identified as a leader for La Familia Michoacana, his role at the time was jefe de plaza of Morelia.  The spelling of Valencias moniker was "El Chucky".

Dozens of Bodies Found in Sewage Canal Outside Mexico City - More Femicide in Mexico State? Posted: 17 Oct 2014 06:33 AM PDT By DD for Borderland Beat Authorities have recovered up to 21 bodies from the canal since June.   Neighbors say there are more than 46. At least 21 bodies have been recovered from a sewage canal in Ecatepec, Mexico State, just outside of Mexico City. From June 1 to September 30, 2014 authorities drained the canal, uncovering the bodies, which were of both genders, many between the ages of 14 and 18. The move to drain the canal comes after relatives seeking the appearance of 40 women, mostly minors, have been demanding more action by the authorities to find their missing loved ones. Octavio Martinez Vargas, president of the Security Committee of the Legislature of the State of Mexico reported that most of the human remains were dumped at a place known as the Devil's Curve. The congressman made the discovery public during a meeting between family members of the missing people and with officials of the attorney general’s office of the State of Mexico. The information was also made known by officials from the attonery general’s suboffice on gender, office on femicides, and the office on human trafficking in the State of Mexico. The move to drain the canal comes after relatives seeking the appearance of 40 women, mostly minors, have been demanding more action by the authorities to find their missing loved ones. Members from Solidarity for the Families, which supports families searching for their disappeared loved ones, countered the information provided by the authorities. They affirm that since January, more than 46 bodies have been discovered. David Figueroa, president of the organization, denounced the lack of care by the authorities to identify the bodies and investigate how they ended up in the canal. "The government says this hand corresponds to that leg and that’s it. They don’t do tests to find out exactly to whom these parts belong, because often what they find are not complete body parts. Since 2011, the State of Mexico (where Pena Nieto was governor) has become one of the states with the highest number of femicides, with a count of four women killed per 100. Civil and women’s rights organizations have been campaigning for the authorities to do more to fight gender violence in the state. During his many campaign rallies Enrique Peña Nieto boasted that he knew about women, because he has six at home. "That's why I am sensitive to the intelligence of women", In a book book by Humberto Padgett titled  The Dead Women of the State: Femicides During the Enrique Peña Nieto State of Mexico Administration he examines the issue.  It is the mixture of a chronicle and a report, an interview and a written history. A story of Mexicans from both the State of Mexico and elsewhere who drive armored cars, eat in the best restaurants, rub shoulders with corrupt church leaders and do not believe that femicide exists. Who think that Mexico is their property, their store to run. A deadly place for women. Where the State of Mexico was the worst place to be a woman, not in absolute numbers, but in rates. More than seven thousand women killed. Between 1990 and 2011 the state, on eleven occasions, held first place in the rate of mortality due to assaults against women. Between 1990 and 1997 the state continuously stayed in first place in femicides. In 2004, 24-year-old Nadia Alejandra Muciño was found dead in her home with a rope and an electrical cord tied around her throat. Even though all signs pointed to murder via strangulation, and there had been a documented record of incidents of domestic violence, authorities declared Mucino's death a suicide. Muciño wasn’t assassinated in Ciudad Juárez — the Mexican border metropolis in the Northern state of Chihuahua — which has become internationally known for these kinds of gruesome murders that largely target young women. No, Muciño was murdered in the state of Mexico — on the outskirts of the capital city, where femicides or the killing of women, topped the nation’s murder statistics. Between 2005 and 2011, during President Peña Nieto’s term as governor of the state of Mexico, 1,997 women were murdered in his state, according to official government statistics. For the past decade, Muciño’s mother, Antonia Márquez, has fought for her daughter’s murderers to be held accountable — even though she said she has continually received physical and verbal threats from various members of the accused murderers' family. She even had to move to a different neighborhood to to avoid the threats by the murderer's family.   Muciño’s three young children were present during her murder and they have repeatedly testified that their father Bernardo López Gutiérrez and uncle Isidro López Gutiérrez allegedly killed their mother, but their testimony has not been sufficient for the prosecutors in the case.  Authorities didn’t arrest either man until a year after Muciño’s death.. In 2012, Bernardo López Gutiérrez was arrested in connection with the case but he still has yet to be convicted. Isidro Lopez Gutierrez was incarcerated between 2009 and 2010 but was eventually released after he appealed his conviction. “When these men see that others have abused, raped and assassinated women and nothing has happened to them or at the most they serve one or two years in jail, there is nothing to prevent them from doing the same, because they know they will not suffer the consequences,”  According to NGO the National Citizens' Femicide Observatory, Mexico State experienced a higher increase in female killings during Peña’s term than that seen in Ciudad Juarez during a similar time period in the 1990s. According to the organization’s most recent report, during the first half of 2009, authorities followed up on just 33 of the 89 femicides registered in Mexico State. The National Citizen Observatory on Femicide, made up of 43 groups dedicated to the defense of human rights, registered 922 femicides in the State of Mexico between January of 2005 and August of 2010. From those almost one thousand cases, only 12% ended in indictments before a judge, and only between 3 and 4% resulted in sentences for the killers. As in the rest of the country, a major factor behind the death of so many women is impunity. As for Márquez, she said she has little faith in the state’s ability to remedy the crisis. “Here machismo, corruption and cover-ups are what reign. For two pesos or cronyism or friendship, they’ll charge someone with a crime or delete their charge,” said Márquez. “What year it is? How is that people still think that women are objects — property of men?”